THE CATHOLIC WORLD

New Zealand Tablet, 30 May 1918, Page 43

THE CATHOLIC WORLD

GENERAL. The dioceses of New York and Brooklyn, which' practically constitute New York City, contain 2,000,000 Catholics, 4000 priests, 400 churches, 300 schools, and 107,000 Catholic children. The diocese of Canaries in the Canary Islands, in the North Atlantic Ocean along the western coast of Africa, has 83,378 Catholics, 103 priests, 42 churches and parishes, and 113 chapels. A number of Catholic laymen are offering their services in San Francisco to teach catechism to the Chinese in connection with the work the Paulist Fathers are doing among those people. The conversions are many and most encouraging. Barely .£4OO, scarcely sufficient to meet the expenses of his illness and funeral, is the amount of the personal estate of the late Archbishop Prendergast of Philadelphia. This was disclosed when his will was opened and read the other day.

In a recent letter Mother Paul, an American, whose home is in the south, states that on Christmas Day no less than two thousand five hundred native Christians received Holy Communion in the Uganda mission, where she is now working.

Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine Republic, is a beautiful city of about 1,200,000 inhabitants. Its cathedral is a Grecian edifice fronted by 12 Corinthian columns. The archdiocese dates from 1620. The city has 22 canonical parishes and 50 other chn relies.

A branch of the Catholic Federation of Societies is now in existence in the Philippine Islands and is under the supervision of the Archbishop of Manila, Most Rev. M. J. O’ Doherty, D.D. The president is Don Cayentano S. Arellano, .Judge of the Supreme Court.

In consequence of the bombardment of the Church of St. Anthony, Padua, the remains of St. Anthony have been removed thence to the Vatican, while some of the treasures have been sent elsewhere for safekeeping- The entrance to the sacred edifice was wrecked and other damage was done.

Cardinal O Connell conferred Holy Orders on a largo number of the students of St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, U.S.A., in the chapel of that institution on March 19 and 20, and in the Cathedral on March 22 ordained 26 and conferred the order of diaconate on 27 others. They were from all sections of the archdiocese of Boston.

The missioners in Rangoon, British India, are having gratifying success in preparing a native clergy. Father Sellos, P.F.M., says that five seminarians will soon be ready and six lay Brothers will at the same time give their services to the missionaries. It is no easy thing for these Tamil youths to leave their homes and choose the priestly life. Their parents, thus losing their help, are much against such a move. The fact that the young apostles persevere shows that their vocation is a true one.

A new diocese has been created by his Holiness Pope Benedict XV. by division of the archdiocese of New Orleans, Louisiana, with the See city at Lafayette. The division comes simultaneously with the announcement of the appointment of Most Rev. John W. Shaw, D.D., as successor of Most Rev. James 11. Blenk, S.M., D.D., recently deceased. Archbishop Shaw will have charge of the new diocese of Lafayette until a bishop is appointed.

Under the direction of the Archbishop of Chicago a great ecclesiastical university is to be erected near Libertyville, on the shores of Lake Michigan Area. Property comprising 300 acres have been purchased, and a campaign will soon be started to raise funds to pay for the buildings. It is expected that their con-

struction will not be begun for some time, possibly not until after the war. The Archbishop is having courses of study for the priests who will form the faculty, mapped out, and these they will take in different seats of learning near Chicago until the seminary building!, are erected. a - Cardinal Bourne was the guest of the Duchess of Norfolk at Arundel Castle for the festival ”of Our l ady of Lourdes, which was also the first anniversary of the death of the late Duke of Norfolk. His Eminence preached in St. Philip’s Church on the eve of the festival, and assisted pontifically and gave the Absolution at the Solemn Requiem which was celebrated on the occasion. The Abbot of Abingdon (Dom Hunter Blair) was in the sanctuary, and a number of the diocesan clergy were present. Lord and Lady Edmund lalbot and Lady Mary Fitzalan Howard were at the castle, as well as the young Duke cfnd his sister, Lady Rachael. File gutted and practically destroyed St. Casimir’s Polish Catholic Church of Brooklyn, N.Y., recently. Two firemen were injured by falling and the pastor of the church was also hurt by a similar fall. The fire started from an unknown cause in the cellar of the chinch under the altar, the damage being estimated at .£IO,OOO. The pastor of the church, Rev. Gustave Ivubec, was aroused and entered the burning building in an effort to save some of the vestments and other altar valuables. lie was walking across the floor in the second storey of the building, when suddenly it precipitating him and two firemen into the cellar. They were attended by a doctor, but not removed to the hospital. The altar of the church was practically destroyed and the interior was gutted. UNREST IN ENGLAND. Simultaneously with the wave of attraction to the Church which is passing over the non-Catholic population in England conies a returning wave of bigotry. Not only is the English Church Union getting very restive over the consecration as Bishop of a Pro” testant clergyman who does not believe in the Virgin Bit lb or the divinity of our Lord, and threatening to reconsider their whole position as regards Anglicanism and the relations with the State which make such an appointment as Canon Henson’s possible, but even the Nonconformist conscience is beginning to awake. A group of Nonconformists have publicly declared their weariness with a religion which has a nebulous Christ, and no sacraments. They say they yearn for the Mass, for the reserved Sacrament, and for dogmas supported by a living Church, not by dead documents ! They find in the Catholic faith more truth than they have found in any other, and they call for a priesthood. And then, in distinction to all this, there is the out (cry of a parcel of bigots at Ramsgate. Having already destroyed two beautiful Calvaries set up in memory of the war dead, and done it under cover of night, these anonymous ruffians are now issuing threatening letters to the Catholic clergy, signed “The Committee of Ten,’’ and are going about to the free libraries destroying Catholic books and periodicals. All efforts of the police so far have been ineffective in discovering the identity of the miscreants.